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The ancient necropolis of Hagr Edfu was an
important cemetery from as early as the late Middle Kingdom
through the Roman period, and, later, the location of a Christian
settlement. Although modern scholars have long been aware of the
site’s significance, it has never before been studied
systematically.

Hagr Edfu provides important evidence for original tomb
architecture and decoration for the elites of the regional capital,
Edfu. The site also vividly attests successive phases of
use in which the original function of some tombs changed. By
Dynasty 18, hieratic visitors’ inscriptions demonstrate that one
large, well-cut tomb had been re-imagined as a temple of Isis.

Centuries later, some of the most prominent rock-cut tombs were
reused for habitation, probably by Christian monks. Tenth and
eleventh century Medieval Christian manuscripts now in the British
Library suggest the site was the location of a Monastery of Saint
Merkurios and other Christian institutions. An early
nineteenth-century church testifies to the site’s continuous or
periodic Christian character.

In 1980, a modern monastery, Deir Anba Bakhum, was established
around the church and is now a popular pilgrimage destination, with
thousands of visitors each year. Today, Hagr Edfu is under threat
from encroaching settlement and water distribution systems.

The British Museum expedition

The British Museum Expedition works to record
key features representing the site’s long history of use. Since
2001, directed by W. V. Davies, the expedition has
documented a cluster of three pharaonic tombs and undertaken the
mapping of tomb entrances at Hagr Edfu.

From 2007, the mission has systematically recorded Late Antique
architecture, architectural installations, Coptic inscriptions and
ostraca. As modern settlement wraps around the site, the water
table is rising and some of the tombs along the lowest terraces of
the desert escarpment are now flooded. In 2009, the mission began a
programme of conservation through documentation to record a range
of representative features at the site.

Project aims

The British Museum Expedition aims to establish
the chronological horizons of use and reuse at the Hagr Edfu, and
to situate the site within its local and regional contexts.

Immediate aims are to: complete real-time kinematic differential
GPS topographical map of the site; undertake geophysical survey to
establish the course of the Nile over time in the Edfu region;
record in full the very important decorated tomb of the
early-Dynasty 18 regional official, Sataimau (Tomb 1), and closely
associated Tombs 2 and 3; plan a representative sample of
undecorated tombs; document Late Antique architecture in and around
earlier rock-cut tombs, Coptic inscriptions and
ostraca; conduct a surface survey of pottery,
and record rock-inscriptions on the hill-top.